


By Night, Love, Tie Your Heart To Mine

by Nokomis



Category: Bandom, Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Animal Transformation, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:18:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lyn-Z is cursed to spend her days as a bird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Night, Love, Tie Your Heart To Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Born out of a discussion with Harborshore, who greatly improved the ending. <3

Gerard was gone before daybreak, which was both a relief and a disappointment. Lyn-Z spent her last hour as a human naked, not bothering with the clothes she'd have to shed as feathers replaced skin and ink, and watched the sky lighten while feeling the ghost of Gerard's hands over her body.

She felt light enough to fly, even in the human body that felt heavy and cumbersome, and smiled as the sun worked its magic on her.

*

Nights passed, nights where she slipped away before daybreak or gambled and won as he left too, but eventually worry took over. She had lost the careless, languid feelings of happiness from her encounters, and instead a cold dread worked its way into her heart as she thought of him. No matter how deftly she tried to evade him, eventually Gerard would want to see her in the day, or stay the full night, and then... and then...

She couldn't imagine him accepting her once he knew her curse, and she couldn't imagine what would happen to when he rejected her. Sometime, when she hadn't been looking, her world had tilted and Gerard had become a fixture in it, and she would give anything to keep him.

Anything except the truth.

*

Being a bird was everything she could have dreamt.

Worrying was for her human nights, and during the days she swam and rested in the sunlight and flew, swooping across bright and cloudy and windy skies alike, feeling the forces of gravity and wind turned to her advantage, feeling her muscles working to achieve something magical. 

The other birds kept their distance, sensing she wasn't quite right, but she was too enthralled with all the liberation that being a bird offered to care, too human still to understand their birdcalls, too enchanted to feel lonely as their cries echoed over the water.

Sunlight and airiness formed her days, but something was different now. There was an ache deep within her she hadn't felt before, a strange emptiness that her human side recognized but didn't dare put a name to, knowing how impossible it was.

*

Gerard noticed something was wrong.

He was perceptive, and Lyn-Z suspected that she was as much a part of his heart as he was of hers, so it wasn't so much as a surprise as it was an inevitability that she hoped somehow would never come to be.

He never asked to see her in the day; she didn't know what he thought she was hiding. (A thought suddenly blossomed, bright and obvious. What if he was hiding something?)

She thought of their midnight picnics, their dates all taking place in the darkness, and realized she'd never see Gerard's face lit by the sun.

Lyn-Z didn't mean to, had promised herself she'd hold tight to what she had, wouldn't try to share everything, would keep her secret to keep Gerard, but...

But holding back had never been her way.

She would tell him.

*

At the pond, there was a strange swan, grey-tinged and solitary. 

There was no reason for Lyn-Z to feel like she should go to him, like somehow he was what she had been wanting.

She flew and swam and kept turning her graceful neck to catch sight of him doing the same, alone at the other side of the sun-dappled water.

*

Gerard sat shock-still, face pale. She'd taken him to the roof to tell him, so that the breeze brushing against her hair (like she was flying) would give her courage, and she's spoken the words aloud for the first time.

Gerard simply looked at the sky.

She was ready to yell, scream, cry, anything... and instead realized the sky was growing brighter and brighter, the sun ready to break free over the horizon and trigger her curse. She stood, unsure, wanting Gerard to leave but also wanting him to stay, to break his silence with a gasp when he saw her transformation.

Gerard looked to the ground, then stood, facing her as he pushed off his jacket. As he pulled off his shirt, and she saw for the first time what transforming looked like, how skin seemed to melt into downy, feather-covered softness.

Lyn-Z was the one who gasped. She pressed herself close and felt his heartbeat echo hers, frantic even as they breathed identical sighs of relief, before separating to take on the final stages of transformation.

They took flight, joyously spreading their wings and facing the day together.


End file.
